What is the Process of Debt Review in South Africa?

Thousands of South African’s are struggling to pay their debt and honour their financial commitments. If you are one of these people and your payments have become so high that you fear blacklisting, you have the option of going under debt review.

The process of debt review was introduced in 2007 as part of the National Credit Act (NCA). Keep in mind that there is a rejection fee of R300 plus VAT if you decide to then manage your own debt. In short, here is how the debt review process works.

Find an experienced debt counsellor. You can do a search online, or you can search for members registered at ncr.org.za.
Provide your debt counsellor with information such as your ID, payslip and monthly expenses. You will likely need to provide a monthly budget for all your expenses too.
Your debt counsellor will work out if you are over-indebted, meaning that your monthly payments are simply not possible with your current income.
Your debt counsellor will work out how much you can afford to spend on debt repayments and how much you need to live on.
From here, you can apply for debt counselling, if you qualify, and you will likely need to pay an application fee, a restructuring fee, or a rejection fee if you do not qualify.
Once signed up, your debt counsellor will contact all your creditors to inform them that you have been placed under debt review and you won’t be blacklisted, but will be protected from harassing creditors.
Keep in mind that you need to repay all your debt, even if you are under debt review.
If all your creditors agree, you will receive a consent order, which confirms all the terms that were agreed upon by all parties.
If a creditor doesn’t like the terms, your debt counsellor can approach a magistrate to propose debt repayment options that will work for you. As long as it’s reasonable, it should likely be approved in court.